The Right Sort of Girl

by Anita Rani

  I’ve been a passenger for this journey since I was in the womb, so instinct kicks in with each gear change. Once out of the city centre, I go past the Victorian terraced houses of inner-city Bradford, curry houses, newsagents that sell fruit and veg, Asian women’s clothing shops, and I drive further past the larger magnificent Victorian homes around Manningham Park, made of sturdy yellow Yorkshire stone, once homes for wealthy merchants, now large enough to house extended Asian families. Keep going, not there yet! Things are beginning to open up though as we round the corner and descend another hill. Got to keep an eye on my speed, driving through new build housing estates for the upwardly mobile middle classes, full of Asians who’d done well and their flash cars parked on concrete driveways, then slip into a lower gear to get up the steep hill to the more affluent villages in Baildon, Eldwick, big solid homes behind Yorkshire walls, with driveways and large gardens with stunning views. These areas are predominantly white in the nineties. Then, all of a sudden, the road opens up to reveal what I’ve been driving like a maniac towards: the West Yorkshire countryside.

  You only need to do this drive for 20 minutes in any direction, from pretty much anywhere in Bradford city centre, and your eyes open a little wider and your lungs breathe a little deeper as you leave the urban sprawl behind and the magnificent splendour greets you with a nod of the flat-capped head and an ‘Ey up?’

  If you head up to Shipley Glen or Baildon Moor for a run around, as we often did as kids, you can see Bradford sitting in its bowl beneath you. Rows and rows of terraced houses, peppered with ‘those dark satanic mills’. The mills that built this city, that fuelled the city, that choked the city, that created communities, that are the reason I am a Yorkshire lass. The mills that kept us locked to the concrete and stone and are also the reason for our need to escape. That used to cough up a right mess but now just sit there quietly and proud, polished up and turned into art galleries and fancy flats.

  It’s on these same moors that Bradfordians have been escaping to get away from the oppression of the city since the Industrial Revolution. But I’m not stopping just yet though. Not this time. My destination is a little further still. The road opens up before me with Dales and sheep and the odd farmhouse on either side. My music gets turned up too.

  For this journey, I need music to fuel my energy, music to match the surroundings, the soundtrack for this moment had to be just right. Will I play Rage Against the Machine? My Jungle mix tape? The Smiths compilation I’ve been listening to for the last four years? The Prodigy, Experience? Nah. Not today. Today, I push the cassette in, rewind it a bit, oh no, too far, fast forward a smidge, rewind a smidge, back, forwards, back, forwards, until I find the beginning of the track or near enough anyway. Predigital, everything took so much longer. But it had to be cued just right. Music born of the same land as me. Today, for this epic drive, my soundtrack has to be Bradford’s finest, New Model Army.

  There’s the converted barn to my right, but today, I haven’t got time to imagine me and my family living in it. I’m now officially on the move, squeezing through Burley in Wharfedale and slowing down to give the Hermit pub a little wave, then, just up a little further, on top of the moorland over a couple of cattle grids, I see her grey craggy face, giving me a knowing smile, in the distance. Awaiting my arrival. As she does everyone. Well aware we all need to break free from our concrete prisons and come seek her embrace. Ilkley Moor. The Cow and Calf rocks.

  The car judders to a stop. I slam the door shut with a tinny clunk. Do I go left for a slow walk up the path or do I go right to scramble up and over the rocks as I always did as a kid? No-brainer. I bust a right and walk towards the pile of fallen rocks that make for a perfect scramble up to the top of the crag.

  ‘I knew this day would come. I’ve been waiting for you,’ she says. (It’s my story and in my story, the moors talk.)

  At the top, out of breath, I turn to take in the view, out to the horizon, over the posh little town of Ilkley, and just stare and breathe deep. Let it all go. It’s November and the weather is as moody as you like, but this is my kind of weather, I can handle this, I’m in my comfort zone. Grey, mysterious, a bit chilly, threatening to rain. The scene is just as I’d imagined it. I knew for a long time that the minute I could get behind the wheel of a car, I’d head to Ilkley Moor for a walk. On my own. No company, just a solitary teenage Indian lass from Bradford walking, looking, breathing and maybe lying down to watch the clouds. I couldn’t wait to make the pilgrimage. To experience this place in a new way, without my family or friends, without the distraction of a conversation or a laugh and a joke, without having to keep someone else entertained, holding a little cousin’s hand, without the distraction of wanting to see the pleasure and joy, sometimes even the fear, in their faces. An aunt from London actually cried with fear climbing to the top. There aren’t too many hills in Southall and Ilkley Moor was proving to be a bit of a culture shock for her. No having to console and convince visiting aunties that they won’t fall off the top or be eaten by a werewolf this time.

  Today, I was here to have her all to myself. No sharing. I do what I always do and read the graffiti etched into the millstone, over a hundred years of names carved into the rocks, leaving their mark, adding to the magic, the names saying they too loved this place. Every time I’m there I think, one day I’ll come back with a chisel and add my own name, stake my claim to a piece of the moor, add to its history: ‘I was ’ere.’ But I never remember to pack my chisel – I don’t have a chisel.

  This place has meaning but, more importantly for me, it has feeling. It’s the reason I made a beeline for it. Anytime I set foot out here on our family weekend adventures, the noise of the rest of my life got dialled down – not muted completely, just dampened. The weight of the world left at the traffic lights in Shipley. Here, all four of us relaxed. Here, my parents smiled. Nature worked its magic and healed us and soothed us, giving us all a shoulder massage. A bit of respite before heading back to the pit of Bradford. These moors were our group family therapy sessions, totally free and available on tap.

  I wanted it to myself this time though. I needed to get away from everyone, everything, up here on my own. It was a place where I didn’t need to wear a particular mask, didn’t need to put on any kind of face. The dutiful daughter, the marriage counsellor, the protector, the clown, the outsider. I didn’t have to worry about anyone else, I didn’t have to consider what people might think of me, I didn’t need to make anyone else feel good about themselves, trying to be what everyone else expected. I was always so aware of other people’s feelings, considerate to their needs, and was always conscious of making sure everyone else felt fine. I always approached the person on their own at a party, I befriended the new girl at school (whether they wanted me to or not). I was resilient and self-assured from a young age because I’d had to be and I was happier thinking about how other people felt rather than how I was feeling. Much easier to talk about someone else rather than yourself. Because I was always fine, remember?

  I didn’t need anyone to look after me or make sure I was OK, that was my survival narrative. My parents always presumed I was OK. Being considerate meant I would never want to upset anyone, so I often never did what I wanted or even said what I was really thinking. I’d just agree to make others feel good. Go along with something even if I didn’t want to, dumb myself down to massage other people’s egos. In the process, I completely disregarded my own feelings. I’ve continued to do it my entire life.

  But up here on my own on the moor there was no expectation of me, I could just be. This time, the outside noise dialled down once again but it kept going all the way down to mute, to nothing, just white noise. It may have started to rain, I may have let myself cry. No one can see you crying in the rain. I didn’t cry much as a teenager. It wasn’t just ‘boys don’t cry’ in my family, girls didn’t cry either. Now I cry at anything, making up for it – all the tears I collected in a reservoir and the dam has finally broken.


  On this day, all I was left with was the thing I least understood, that scared me the most: my deepest feelings. Sadness, loneliness and the excitement of all the possibilities, all crashing around together usually, but now still. There was always comfort in my loneliness, because I was confident in my own ability to look after myself and I liked my own company. The fear I felt was a fear of stagnation, of things never changing, a fear of being trapped, a fear of not being able to live the life I want. And at 17, I knew I had the world ahead of me. Back then, the fear didn’t scare me, it didn’t paralyse me, it just fuelled me. I had energy and urgency pumping through me at a speed that matched my driving and it was this drive that powered me forward.

  I walked and walked as my inner mantra repeated and repeated and repeated: ‘I will get out of here. There’s a whole world out there. For me.’

  I just wanted to live my own life and not have anyone tell me what to do. Don’t we all? I wanted to find a place where I could just be me. Express myself. Enjoy myself. Be myself.

  I didn’t fit the mould of anything around me. Not at home, not at school. Whatever shape it was, it wasn’t Anita-shaped. I was free-spirited and open-minded and curious as hell. I was a loud-mouthed gobshite, with a fuck ton of opinions at school. I was a frustrated, angry teenager and yet trying to be a dutiful daughter who did everything right at home. I’d sucked out everything Bradford had to offer at this point and I was stifled by the ‘community’ around me. I really didn’t want what everyone else had. I didn’t want to ‘settle down’. I wanted out of the suburbs, I wanted to explore life and have adventures. I hated what was expected of me. I had had enough of the patriarchal rule over my life and how it was being upheld and perpetuated by women. I wanted to find my voice and find my people. There had to be more like me out there somewhere. I wanted to define myself. I wanted to have some fun. I wanted freedom.

  I flippin’ well needed to get out.

  Work Harder Than Everyone Else and You Might Have a Shot

  It’s 1996 and things can only get better.

  ‘You’re heading for two Es, Anita.’

  This is what my form tutor said to me when I went to discuss possible university applications. I fancied sitting the Oxbridge entrance exam, but I’d not been selected as one of the top tier of girls who would be groomed by my school. Most of the girls had already been groomed by their parents to make sure they headed straight to either Oxford or Cambridge. That’s the kind of thing the aspiring, wealthy middle classes know about. That’s the kind of thing private schools are geared towards. You’ve been taught Latin from the age of 11, given self-belief by the bucket load, and you are trained to know exactly what’s expected of you in those interviews. Plus, you will have studied piano and ballet and horse riding and violin, you’ll be able to talk with ease about your extra-curricular activities and your expensive skiing holidays and your work placement at your godfather’s investment bank. I don’t think it has changed since.

  ‘Dad thinks I should study law at Cambridge.’ Indian parents aren’t short on aspiration.

  The teacher basically laughed in my face. So how did the Punjabi lass from Bradford get to work in television, I hear you wonder.

  I’d been working at my local Asian radio station for a few years and already I knew that I really loved it. But I didn’t think I could get a career as a music radio presenter on Radio 1. (That was so far away and, as it transpires, would always remain far away.) It was simply a great hobby for a girl who couldn’t sit still, I mean THE perfect hobby for me. I was put in a soundproof room on my own, with a microphone to say what I wanted, and two hours to play music. It doesn’t get better than this, whether people listened or not – and they did listen! I was there as much as I could be. I hosted a bhangra show which I subverted into an Asian underground show, blasting Fun-Da-Mental, Bally Sagoo and the KK Kings out to shopkeepers, housewives and taxi drivers across West Yorkshire. I couldn’t get enough. During my holidays I’d present five days a week, on either Breakfast or Drive Time.

  Then I watched the brilliant film Bhaji on the Beach when I was 15. It was a monumental moment in my life. I’d never seen anything like it. This film for me was everything. It was made by two Indian women – written by Meera Syal and directed by Gurinder Chadha. It was the story of a group of Asian women from Birmingham going on a trip to Blackpool to escape their lives. This film was fearless and covered so many important and relevant issues within the Asian community. I saw myself for the first time. I was so overwhelmed by what I saw that I wrote a letter to Meera Syal to tell her what I thought about the film. A handwritten letter. And I bloody critiqued it. I think I told her that not all teenage girls wanted to impress boys. I was such a nun. Amazingly, Meera wrote back. It showed me Asian women can write, direct and star in British movies! We don’t have to wait, we can create our own stories. I wanted to do that. My thinking was as simple as that: if you see it, you can be it.

  I’d recently had a . . . debate, let’s say, with my dad, about what I should study at university. He thought I would naturally be applying to study law. Now, I loved the idea of being a barrister and presenting cases and arguing in court and L.A. Law was one of my favourite TV shows at the time. But I realised I didn’t want to study law, I wanted to be in L.A. Law. I suggested I study drama. This was quickly put to bed as a ridiculous idea. What was I going to do with a drama degree? Act? Ha!

  ‘When was the last time you saw a successful Asian actor in the UK . . . apart from Art Malik, on the TV? Even the guy who played the Indian in Short Circuit was white!’ For a long time, there has been the stereotype that Asian kids are encouraged to only study a few set things. ‘You have a choice to study law, medicine, pharmacy, accountancy, dentistry, business, IT, absolutely your choice, no pressure, your choice, but it has to be on my list of subjects chosen for you, by me. Your choice though, remember, no pressure.’

  Not everyone conforms, because there are plenty of Asian builders out there too. Education is of huge importance to the Asian community. It is a way out of poverty and the above careers are not only well paid but well-respected professions. To be a ‘professional’ gives everyone a great sense of pride and you have some kind of authority and respect in a land that’s not your own. You can afford the house, the family, the Mercedes or BMW. You know you are smart, smart enough to make it in a foreign land, despite the odds being stacked against you. When our parents and grandparents arrived here, not all were uneducated. Some came with degrees and professions, but those hard-earned bits of paper that many sacrifices were made to gain did not have any value here. Our families had to do menial and manual jobs to get by and they were not too proud to do whatever they had to do to provide a better life for their kids, so they in turn wouldn’t have to do the same jobs. I’d watched my mum’s little sister arrive in London with a first-class MA in English, one of the smartest women I know, work as a seamstress all the hours God sends while raising her family. Her daughter studied law and is now a very successful businesswoman. For Asian parents, watching their kids succeed makes it all worthwhile. It was the entire point of the immigration exercise. The traditional career paths were ‘encouraged’ to make our lives easier.

  It does mean that if you try and suggest something else, like maybe your heartfelt passion, you are looked at in a patronising way, smiled at, and then an instant change of expression happens: a frown, with a short, sharp ‘NO’, is the end of that conversation. Or a ‘study law/medicine/accountancy first, so you have something to fall back on’. Ideas of getting into other industries, where we would have to fight tooth and nail, are shut down instantly because it was obvious from the landscape around us that these were not places where people who look like us can gain any success. Most of us didn’t even realise the variety of jobs out there that we could potentially do. Even if I had studied drama, the chances of me getting any kind of success would have been so slim. The roles for Asian women are few and far between. Only now is the landscape just beginning to change,
slowly. Thankfully there is now an army of Asian kids who don’t want to go down the ‘traditional’ chosen careers path and I would actively encourage this. Follow your passion. Those industries are crying out for you.

  Education, work, was meant to be freedom. It’s where I put all my chips to get out. After doing some research I found the best media course in the country at Leeds University, a four-year degree studying broadcasting. I thought I’d stick with what I already knew a bit about. It was highly competitive to get onto this course, mainly as it offered a coveted six-month placement in industry. This was gold dust. There were only 30 places on the degree and the entry requirements were an intensive interview process plus two As and a B. I was happy and Dad was happy.

  And then: ‘You’re heading for two Es. I suggest you do not apply to Leeds,’ was what I got from my tutor.

  I went home a bit upset that evening. This is where my dear mother’s never-ending well of positivity came into its own.

  ‘Don’t listen to her.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘If you want to go to Leeds, then apply for Leeds. At least get the interview and see what happens. The teacher doesn’t know everything.’

  So, I did. And I got an interview.

  I went dressed in my tweed blazer (I was wearing tweed long before Countryfile), the lapels covered in badges, mittens on string threaded through the arms. Very practical solution to not losing gloves, I’ve always thought.

  I loved school, I loved learning and I was bright and quick. I grasped concepts, always had an opinion and loved being involved in discussions. My problem was I just never really studied enough at home, because home was complicated. I’d managed to coast through most of my schooling and get ten GCSEs, but A-levels needed me to knuckle down. I didn’t. I didn’t have a photographic memory and neither did I really have the space and peace where I could sit and study. My mind wasn’t focused, it was preoccupied with looking after my family and keeping peace in the home. I worried all the time about my parents. I shouldered the responsibility of keeping everyone else happy and making sure everyone was OK. The burden of the eldest daughter. I’d go between the living room to hang out with Dad, the kitchen to help Mum and my brother’s bedroom to make sure he wasn’t becoming too much of a hermit, always wanting to protect him. I think my parents relied on me. I was the go-between. The peacekeeper. The UN. Or, at least, I tried to be, keeping the peace by keeping everyone upbeat. I needed to make sure that they were not too upset, sad or lonely or, crucially, angry. I was and am loved by both my parents and enjoyed spending time with them. But I had the ability to change their moods, particularly Dad’s. Their marriage consumed me, I was like a parent watching two kids who could play up at any moment, and it was my job to keep them distracted and entertained.